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Compressor usage

Is it possible to record a track without using a compressor at all? What will be the results?

If you want to know that question why don't you try it.

Listen to michael jackson�s thriller album. It was mixed without compression at all!
Not sure if there was any compression during the mastering stage, but if so - minimal I guess.
You will most likely need to ride the faders quite a bit (volume automation), in order to get the track
nicely even. Try it! I�m using VERY little compression in my newest remix, so I�m curious
on how it will sound in the end.

compression is not a must, it's an artistic decission

Re: Compressor usage

quote:

Originally posted by Microlab Is it possible to record a track without using a compressor at all? What will be the results?

To understand what a compressor is useful for, study what dynamics means. There are sounds you want to compress so they meet a certain threshold in volume and dont go past that and all dynamics within that individual sound track meet that volume without going past it by much. If they are higher than the lower volumed sounds then those higher sounds are squashed so that the lower sounds are more closer in volume to the higher sounds. You have to ask yourself do you want the dynamics to be even or do you want the different moments within a sound to be dynamic and have different volumes, a dynamic sound usually has more character. Something like a snare you want all the snare hits to maintain an even level of volume so that the overall mix isnt jumping around in volume because the snare is changing its volume every other hit, especially if you have a compressor on the mix bus, same with the kick. Compression is as artistic as it is a technical utility. It just takes a lot of practice to get mixes sounding good.

But as far as results of not compressing, your mix will jump around in volume and is hard to mix down and master later on. And you also run into the problem of clipping when you have a lot of tracks at their highest dynamic point going off at the same time, good compression technique will lower the chances of this happening. Personally I use minimal compression, I like to keep a sounds dynamics as much as possible, lets the track breath.

IMO compression is vastly overused in most music (especially commercial music). It often ruins all the dynamics of tracks and although in many cases when used technically correctly it can add energy, it often removes all subtlety and dynamic variance in tracks.

It is in most instances necessary for vocals, basslines and loud drums, but people seem to throw it on everything now, thinking it's a mandatory requirement.

I actually try to avoid using compression until the very last stages of the mix (unless for obvious elements listed above), as this makes me concentrate harder on getting the samples and relative levels just right in the first place, and stops me from "cheating" by compressing elements that don't fit well together naturally.

this is quote from another forum by manuel schleis (guy behind spencer & hill)

quote:

compression is made for vocal recordings, drum recordings (real drums), guitar recordings etc... Its made for making low volume parts louder and high volume parts softer to get an equal average volume... in my opinion, it makes absolutely NO sense, to compress a pad, or a lead sound or any other synthetic sounds, where you have a full ADSR and note volume-velocity control...

He does not even compress the kick wich was huge surprise for me..

i hate compression , its a ballache and i cant be bothered to involve it in any of my productions just because everyone else says so.
Ive had comments saying ive overcompressed in the MPP when ive not even used a compressor.
Ive hundreds of knobs to turn , and i dont see why a compressor should undo your work and in the end you switch it off.
My gosh i feel strongly about anti-compression.

quote:

Originally posted by Notle He does not even compress the kick wich was huge surprise for me..

I rarely compress ANY sampled drums, unless I'm intentionally trying to achieve a compressed sound for effect. There's no need to compress anything that has a static level (e.g., samples) - if you need to achieve a consistent level with samples, just make sure the velocities are the same and set the fader where you want it.

quote:

Originally posted by Notle this is quote from another forum by manuel schleis (guy behind spencer & hill) He does not even compress the kick wich was huge surprise for me..

Well sometimes you have to if you want the track to swing, compressing will allow you to draw the kick in a way that it behaves with the bassline better, if you dont compress it you might not get that swing the bassline is offering the piece. So compressing and shortening kick by milliseconds might make that difference. Sometimes a kick's transient already works well with the bassline and no compression is needed. That said I doubt he never compresses the kick, different pieces require different compression technique.

But yah hes right about not compressing a pad, the only pads that you might want to compress are the ones that swell up and down and the peak is far higher in db than the lower portions which can cause problems with the mix. Also compression might be needed if you are doing filter automation on the pad, on some pads opening the cutoff will increase the volume and create problems with the mix if you dont compress, or instead of compressing you can automate the volume as the filter cutoff opens up, ie ride the fader

quote:

Originally posted by Notle this is quote from another forum by manuel schleis (guy behind spencer & hill) He does not even compress the kick wich was huge surprise for me..

I said the same thing on another forum once and got lambasted. Compression is great for vocals and guitars, but I don't personally use it on synths except where I'm after a very specific effect.

quote:

Originally posted by Notle He does not even compress the kick wich was huge surprise for me..

Well that would make sense, since he rips all his samples from other tracks which already have compression on them

I compress fairly much and I think it works so I don't care what other people say.

I use compression on a regular basis. Both on acoustic instruments and electronic.

How do you guys go about designing your transients to fit the song if you are not using compression? transient designers?

Compression is a must IMO if you want to for example bring out the initial transient of a kick or snare drum for example. It can makes things really punchy if thats what you want.

Compression is also a must when mixing dry vocals to get even dynamics, especially in dancce music.

If using software compressors at extreme settings on for example a kick drum, you will want to use an eq after the compressor to boost some bass frequencies. Software compressors really do suck all the bottom end out of things.

quote:

Originally posted by Beyer Listen to michael jackson�s thriller album. It was mixed without compression at all! Not sure if there was any compression during the mastering stage, but if so - minimal I guess. You will most likely need to ride the faders quite a bit (volume automation), in order to get the track nicely even. Try it! I�m using VERY little compression in my newest remix, so I�m curious on how it will sound in the end.

I've read before never to touch volume levels of tracks individually, is altering individual track volumes seen as being ok in small ammounts?

I put a broadband EQ on most tracks, or lowband eq on for bassier tracks and tweak the freqs on these along with some panning for all the tracks to work well with each other, which seems to work.

I also put a compressor on the master channel and tweak this which seems to make the track sound better overall drastically.

I suppose once I was happy with a track (not quite fully completed one yet) I would use something like O-zone to try to master as best I could a final sterio track to then send to a label.

Would you agree this is a good method?

Some may think they'll make the track loud in the mastering stage, and only think about getting the levels right when mixing, but if you're going to have it loud whilst at the same time maintaining some dynamics between each element, you'll have to compress each seperatly, and not only in the mastering stage.

With this in mind one could say it's worse smashing the dynamics in the mastering stage than when mixing.. just imagine two stereo mixdowns with same average RMS, one smashed when mixing and one when mastering. Which one will have most sonic clearity? Which one will sound most dynamic?

If you're going to smash it anyway in mastering, why not make it loud in the mixing stage instead. It will be equally loud but with more dynamic feel between elements.

quote:

Originally posted by daeus I've read before never to touch volume levels of tracks individually, is altering individual track volumes seen as being ok in small ammounts?

This is nonsense. Just do as you see fit. Before there where compressors they automated track volumes nonstop by riding the faders.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Well that would make sense, since he rips all his samples from other tracks which already have compression on them

lol vengeance packs

Do whatever achieves your aim in the most effective way for you.

Some people create fantastic sounding music using a lot of compression. Others create equally fantastic music using no compression.

Always be open to discovering new, more effective ways of doing things. If you think in terms of "always" or "never" then you're closing yourself off to other possibilities and may limit your progress. It's good to have these discussions and you can use them to inform your production methods, but in the end you decide for yourself what you're going to do.

dannib - could you be more specific in terms of hardware vs software compressors? There are hundreds, or thousands, of compressors out there, both hardware and software, each of which process sound in their own particular way. It hasn't been my experience that software compressors suck the bottom end out of sounds. If it's doing that, it may be the compressor or it may be the nature of the incoming sound. In any case, I haven't noticed this phenomenon in either the compressor that comes with Cubase 4, nor the Waves C1 compressor.

quote:

Originally posted by Storyteller Well that would make sense, since he rips all his samples from other tracks which already have compression on them I compress fairly much and I think it works so I don't care what other people say.

Contrary to popular belief.. Manuel doesn't rip his sounds off people, people just use them a lot. If you check the release dates for whatever you think he ripped, you'll probably find the Vengeance CD came out first.

quote:

Originally posted by mysticalninja Contrary to popular belief.. Manuel doesn't rip his sounds off people, people just use them a lot. If you check the release dates for whatever you think he ripped, you'll probably find the Vengeance CD came out first.

There has been a lot of debate about the Vengeance samples.

Some people hear that they're ripped from existing songs, then vastly overestimate the number of samples that have been ripped, rather than acknowledging that a large proportion have been created through other synthesis techniques and are thus legitimate.

Some people haven't come across hard evidence that some Vengeance samples are indeed unquestionably ripped from existing songs. I was one of these people until a few months ago when the evidence was posted on this forum.

You will notice, if you look on Vengeance's website, that the descriptions for the VEC series contain some words to the effect "no ripped loops/ samples etc, all sounds are original"...something like that.

Then look at the descriptions for the VEH series. They don't contain this phrase. The evidence of blatant ripping that was provided came from the VEH series. It seems like leaving this phrase out could well be an admission by Vengeance that VEH uses ripped material.

The evidence seems impossible to argue with - the original material has the fullrange sound, the VEH loops took the original material, highpassed it to remove the kick, maybe applied some other processing, but it's obvious it was ripped from the original source. I didn't check the release dates of the songs in question, but my impression at the time was they predated the VEH series by a few years.

quote:

Originally posted by mysticalninja Contrary to popular belief.. Manuel doesn't rip his sounds off people, people just use them a lot. If you check the release dates for whatever you think he ripped, you'll probably find the Vengeance CD came out first.

Yes go tell that to my friends he sampled.
Another topic on this forum tackled the subject as well with obvious proof where tracks from before the sample-cd's release date where posted and the exact same loops where on the cd.

edit: I'm saying the same thing is Derail I see

The only proof I need is the way the loops are highpassed and the tails on the hits are cut. Incidentally, that's enough to make me not want to use them.

I wont go into to vengeance ripping sounds again in this thread. use the search to find a long thread on that subject.

@Derail. I am comparing an empirical labs distressor and API 525 with all of the UAD plugins and the waves C1.

Try running a standard kick drum through the c1. After a couple of db of gain reduction i can clearly hear the low end being affected. If you then bring up the make up gain to match the original uncompressed signal, the compressed signal may sound somewhat louder and punchier but the original source has a more rounder and deeper bass content. You can double check this with a spectrum analyser.

When dialing in similar settings with the distressor or API the compressed signal still retains the bass content and sounds more "real". Its hard to explain until you compare them yourself.

I wont go into to vengeance ripping sounds again in this thread. use the search to find a long thread on that subject.

@Derail. I am comparing an empirical labs distressor and API 525 with all of the UAD plugins and the waves C1.

Try running a standard kick drum through the c1. After a couple of db of gain reduction i can clearly hear the low end being affected. If you then bring up the make up gain to match the original uncompressed signal, the compressed signal may sound somewhat louder and punchier but the original source has a more rounder and deeper bass content. You can double check this with a spectrum analyser.

When dialing in similar settings with the distressor or API the compressed signal still retains the bass content and sounds more "real". Its hard to explain until you compare them yourself.

I wont go into to vengeance ripping sounds again in this thread. use the search to find a long thread on that subject.

@Derail. I am comparing an empirical labs distressor and API 525 with all of the UAD plugins and the waves C1.

Try running a standard kick drum through the c1. After a couple of db of gain reduction i can clearly hear the low end being affected. If you then bring up the make up gain to match the original uncompressed signal, the compressed signal may sound somewhat louder and punchier but the original source has a more rounder and deeper bass content. You can double check this with a spectrum analyser.

When dialing in similar settings with the distressor or API the compressed signal still retains the bass content and sounds more "real". Its hard to explain until you compare them yourself.

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